Part 9 (1/2)

”I suppose I must have,” I said. ”But I won't let it break loose in that way again. I'll suppress it. It's--it's--this is rather an insulting thing to say to you, but it's a humiliating discovery to make that I have----”

Mrs. Ascher nodded.

”My husband always says that you Irish----”

”He's quite wrong,” I said; ”quite wrong about me at all events. I hate paradoxes. I'm a plain man. The only thing I really admire is common sense.”

”I understand,” she said. ”I understand exactly what you feel.”

She is a witch and very likely did understand. I did not.

”Now,” she said. ”Now, I can talk to you. Sit down, please.”

She pulled over a low stool, the only seat in the room. I sat on it.

Mrs. Ascher stood, or rather drooped in front of me, leaning on one hand, which rested, palm down, on the table where Tim Gorman's image stood. I doubt whether Mrs. Ascher ever stands straight or is capable of any kind of stiffness. But even drooping, she had a distinct advantage over me. My stool was very low and my legs are long. If I ventured to lean forwards, my knees would have touched my chin, a position in which it is impossible for a man to a.s.sert himself.

”I am so very glad,” she said, ”that you like the little head.”

I was not going to be caught again. One lapse into artistic fervour was enough for me. Even at the risk of offending Mrs. Ascher beyond forgiveness, I was determined to preserve my self-respect.

”I wish you wouldn't take my word for it's being good,” I said. ”Ask somebody who knows. The fact that I like it is a proof that it's bad, bad art, if it's a proof of anything. I never really admire anything good, can't bear, simply can't bear old masters, or”--I dimly recollected some witty essays by my brilliant fellow-countryman Mr.

George Moore--”I detest Corot. My favourite artist is Leader.”

Mrs. Ascher smiled all the time I was speaking.

”I know quite well,” she said, ”that my work isn't good. But you saw what I meant by it. You can't deny it now, and you know that the boy is like that.”

”I don't know anything of the sort. I don't know anything at all about him. The only time I ever came into touch with him he was helping his brother to persuade Mr. Ascher to go into a doubtful--well, to make money by what I'd call sharp practice.”

”I don't think he was,” said Mrs. Ascher. ”The elder brother may have been doing what you say; but Tim wasn't.”

”He was in the game,” I said.

I spoke all the more obstinately because I knew that Tim was not in the game, I was determined not to be hysterical again.

”I've had that poor boy here day after day,” said Mrs. Ascher, ”and I really know him. He has the soul of an artist. He is a creator. He is one of humanity's mother natures. You know how it is with us. Something quickens in us. We travail and bring to the birth.”

Mrs. Ascher evidently included herself among the mother natures. It seemed a pity that she had not gone about the business in the ordinary way. I think she would have been happier if she had. However, the head of Tim Gorman was something. She had produced it.

”That is art,” she said dreamily, ”conception, gestation, travail, birth. It does not matter whether the thing born is a poem, a picture, a statue, a sonata, a temple----”

”Or a cash register,” I said.

The thing born might apparently be anything except an ordinary baby. The true artist does not think much of babies. They are bourgeois things.

”Or a cash register,” she said. ”It makes no difference. The man who creates, who brings into being, has only one desire, that his child, whatever it may be, shall live. If it is stifled, killed, a sword goes through his heart.”

It seemed to me even then with Mrs. Ascher's eyes on me, that it was rather absurd to talk about a cash register living. I do not think that men have ever personified this machine. We talk of s.h.i.+ps and engines by the names we give them and use personal p.r.o.nouns, generally feminine, when we speak of them. But did any one ever call a cash register ”Minnie” or talk of it familiarly as ”she”?

”He thinks,” said Mrs. Ascher, ”indeed he is sure--he says his brother told him----”